Well, hell. It’s more like hell. Before I sent the first pages of Twist of Fate off to various contests, I put those pages through peer review and revised them many times.
Afterwards, I congratulated myself on having sent the best possible entry I could. I then set those pages aside (in ignorant bliss) and proceeded to revise the remainder of the manuscript.
Now, I’m supposed to be done. Maybe making minor edits--polishing, checking for typos and formatting issues etc. But guess what? When I went back to the beginning I found out those first pages simply are not as good as I thought. Yikes, more revisions!
Lesson learned: It’s important to let the manuscript sit, in order to gain objectivity.
What lessons have you learned from revising your WIP?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
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12 comments:
I think it's more than just "letting it sit." I also think you learn a lot from writing. And while you're writing, and letting things sit, you'll come back with not just fresh eyes, but with fresh ideas.
So far I have learned that the instant farm animals start showing up in my manuscript I should be very, very wary. ;)
Miss Snark suggests that once you "finish" a book, you leave it alone for a month, not querying or anything. Then, re-read and revise.
I do a lot of tweaking as I write, so I'm praying major revison is not necessary. But the first stuff I wrote sucks big time and might even be beyond revision. It's true the more you write, the better you get...even your blog posts count toward that, I think ;)
I revise as I go, but then I can't really tell where I need to have major revisions. That's why I love my CPs. They tell me where something needs fixing... and I fix it. At this point, I'm just waiting for agent feedback and praying that PMA sells. Then I'll let my editor tell me where something needs fixing...
Alas, I also had the oh-so-innocent idea that those first three chapters were done. But, in even the last few months, I have learned so much, and deepened my characters, and need to revise again.
On my blog I posted about reading my WIP straight through and everything that became obvious.
I don't think I will ever be done revising! I'm just going to have to ame myself stop. I'm so jealous that the rest of TOF is done!
CM-Does that apply to crabs?
Maggie, I hate it when Miss Snark is right!
Sara-I'm loving the good news of my fellow fanliters. Can't wait to read PMA. Loved the excerpt on your site.
Leigh, Unbound Heart is awesome! The fact that you're improving it blows me away.
I relate so much to the "I'll never be finished revising," sentiment. Your jealousy is misplaced!
I've got a slew of books on my coffee table that explain how to write a romance novel. I'm wondering why I didn't buy them before I wrote Twist of Fate. But in all honesty, part of me is glad I didn't. Otherwise, I never would have written the book from my heart. I'd have been too busy following the rules.
You sound exactly like me. I think I could literally be revising my first novel forever. It seems every time I go back and look at it, it needs more work. I've put on the shelf right now for over and month and will revisit it again at the beginning of May. I know eventually I have to stop tweaking.
Oh, you know I hear you. I mean, there are chapters of GOTH I've revised 5 times, and now am considering deleting entirely! (That should be a clue, hmm? If it takes 5 tries to get a scene to work, maybe there's something fundamentally wrong with that scene?
I sorta wish I'd heard of GMC before I wrote my own book. *rolling eyes*
I found out that I absolutley must have a hard copy to read after I let it sit. But what do you do when you don't have time to let it sit?
Let's see wrong names, misspelled words, which I am famous for by the way.
I kind of think that no matter how much we read and reread and let other read and reread, there will always be that one big blunder, that we roll our eyes at.
I agree with Christina about the hard copy... I'm currently working with printed pages and catching so much stuff! Something becomes more obvious when you see it on a real page and not a computer screen. (Sorry, trees!)
The only way to really edit is on hardcopy.
I'm thinking this means I'm going to have to buy a printer and a vast quantity of paper in just a little while. ;)
Hard copy and perhaps reading backwards? I haven't forced myself to do this yet, but have been told that if you read your manuscript starting from the last sentence on the page and work backwards, this prevents your brain from tricking you into missing typos, misspellings etc.
And I second the wishing I'd heard of GMC (and about a million other things). I think we did pretty well considering!
What feels worse to me than finding typos and misused words in my own manuscript is when I find them in the manuscripts that I've critiqued for others, and now am doing another look at a second or third revision. I just don't know how some of those typos could have survived ALL of our eyes. Perhaps it is indeed because we are not using hard copies.
Read it out loud -- that's my final step in any manuscript. If I stumble over sentences or words or phrases, those are the ones to fix. Also watch the intonation. If you emphasize the wrong part of the sentence and you wrote the darn thing, it, too, needs to be revised.
Good luck on the contests. . .and the revisions!
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